SVG Sit-Down: At IBC 2022, Vizrt Team Reflects on the Company's Transformation Since 2019 The exhibit touted cloud developments, Engine 5, and NDI version 5.5 By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Monday, September 19, 2022 - 11:26 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Vizrt was one of the companies that showed up at IBC transformed since IBC 2019. The acquisition of NDI, which was fresh in 2019, is now fully integrated and baked into the Vizrt environment; the cloud and virtualized tools continue to gain interest from customers; and the company even announced acquisition of Flowics at the show. During the show, SVG caught up with four members of the Vizrt team: TJ Akhtar, VP, product management, Vizrt; Suso Carrillo, NDI marketing lead, Vizrt Group; Amisa Saari-Stout, communications specialist, Vizrt; and Ulrich Voigt, VP, product management, Vizrt Cloud Solutions, Vizrt. Below is an edited transcript of the conversation.
(l-to-r) Vizrt's Suso Carillo; Ulrich Voight, Amasi Saari-Stout, and TJ Akhtar at IBC last week.
What are the big storylines for Vizrt at IBC 2022?
Akhtar: From a group perspective, there are a lot of new things. At NAB, we talked a lot about the cloud piece and new developments on the Viz Engine side as well as NDI. At our Vizrt days, we had a preview of two big things: the cloud piece and the release of Viz Engine 5. Fast forward a few more months, and we now have NDI version 5.5 and then the acquisition of Flowics in the past few days. So it has been a very busy period for us.
Can you give us an update on the Vizrt engine?
Akhtar: A couple of the big pieces of Engine 5. We rewrote the integration with Unreal Engine 5, which was released earlier this year. That comes with a lot of new features like Lumen for the lighting piece, and you can build your own virtual world and mass scale with Nanite [the virtualized geometry system in version 5]. We want to utilize all those features and rebuild our integration from the ground up so the features can be used natively, including the retracing. We can control from Viz Engine and our control application pretty much every single element as part of an Unreal Scene.
On top of that, we also added asset management of Unreal Engine Scenes, which can be multiple gigs. We've added support for Unreal within our Graphics Hub, which is a massive piece and gives redundancy when collaborating and security of your traffic files.
We also have adaptive graphics for adaptive storytelling where content is delivered on multiple platforms and over multiple target points. And we've actually passed the inflection point where consumption is on digital vs. linear broadcast, so we want to make it easier for broadcasters to create graphics that can be used and played out via multiple sources and whether it is 16:9 or 9:16 for TikTok or square for Instagram and Facebook. Adaptive graphics enables all of that, and our broadcast partners can design a graphic once and use it multiple times without having to duplicate the design.
Let's talk NDI 5.5. What's new, and what does it mean to the marketplace?
Carrillo: The key point with NDI 5.5 is that the focus is on NDI Tools, which is a suite of free tools that have features like multi-audio management, an NDI switcher, and some other capabilities.
NDI now has a lot of flexibility, and that's why we decided to improve the features so that everybody can have a multichannel-audio workflow.
Akhtar: Just to add to that: one of the benefits of NDI 5.5 as part of Viz Engine is the insertion of metadata within the NDI stream. That enables the graphics piece to do multi-camera remote production purely on NDI. That is enabled by new features that will be coming in a later release of NDI. When it comes to live production, the improvements move us towards live production in the cloud.
Let's talk about the cloud. Vizrt has been doing virtualized hardware for a long time. How does that help with customers moving production to the cloud?
Voigt: It's an easy step for us to go into the cloud and with some optimizations. The first step is that all our products are now running in the cloud so you can do Engine in the cloud, you can do switching, you can do replay, you can do sport analysis and even virtual ad overlays. And NDI is the fabric to make it possible and combine with on-premises equipment. For sports analysis, we can now get live camera feeds from the stadium and then do all the analysis and illustration creation in the cloud live and then get the signal back into the production.
The trick is, how do you make that accessible to the general user without the need for cloud engineers who are focused on security and the virtual environment? That is one reason we developed a cloud deployment platform that can set up the infrastructure and Vizrt tools virtually within 15 minutes after a template is selected for a type of production. All the user needs to do is connect to it, and they can do their work. We can still do remote production with hardware set up in two locations, but, with the cloud, you can build the whole production gallery in a matter of minutes by just selecting a template. Then the team has full control and can tweak it.
But key is that the cloud is just another infrastructure; it's not another product. And that makes it seamless: the user can have half of it in the cloud and half of it in the OB van. They can connect together and have the same workflow and create graphics and use them everywhere. Or they can create a show rundown in Mozart to automate the show in the cloud or in hardware.
The remote accessibility of NDI gives you a lot of new workflow possibilities. A remote commentator can use free NDI tools and NDI bridge to connect to the cloud, and everything is based on current workflows, so they don't need a cloud-enginee
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
Latino Film Institute Fellows Screen Their Short Films at the Egyptian Theatre
The Inclusion Fellowship and Spark Animation Grant uplifts 15 ...
29/05/2026
GLOOKAST LAUNCHES CINNAFILM TACHYON PLUGIN FOR MEDIA PRODUCER AND MEDIA SERVICES
This release first appeared here.
Visit our Tachyon product page or contact...
29/05/2026
May 29 2026, 09:00 (PDT) Dolby and rednote Bring More Immersive Storytelling to...
29/05/2026
Something fundamental has shifted in how people consume media. Audiences aren't abandoning television or radio content; they're just expanding how, wher...
29/05/2026
Youtube exclusive special drops today
Watch now
UKTV today announces another e...
SVG Sit-Down: At IBC 2022, Vizrt Team Reflects on the Company's Transformation Since 2019 The exhibit touted cloud developments, Engine 5, and NDI version 5.5 By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
